We’re just a little more than halfway through the football season and we’ve had plenty of surprises this year. We’ve had plenty of things go exactly as expected. For instance, at the start of the season we all expected Pottsville to control the 4A-4 conference. And they have.

On the other hand, some of us didn’t necessarily expect the Cyclones to dominate Fort Smith Northside and Little Rock Parkview. But they did. Atkins wasn’t expected to defeat Charleston. But they did. Surprises like that are exactly what makes football the great sport it is.

We had new coach hopefuls in Hector, Lamar and Dover. We’ve seen those schools go through the associated growing pains of a new system, with varying degrees of success.

Now, here in week seven, the season statistic totals are starting to add up. We’re starting to see who stands out a little more than the others.

We’ve seen kids perform at surprising levels of efficiency. It’s been exciting to watch, and I feel extremely blessed that my job has been to write about it. Apache Michael Perry consistently amazes. Cyclone Jalen Curtis hauls in catch after catch, wracking up 599 yards and catching the attention of the University of Arkansas scouts. Russellville’s dual quarterback system has thrown for 1,360 yards and 14 touchdowns.

There are impressive numbers all over the Arkansas River Valley.

The Courier wants to keep track of those totals. But we need a little help. What we need is for the coaches to begin sending us stats for passing, rushing, receiving, tackles, fumbles and interception for your players so we can begin compiling them for Tri-county statistic leaderboard.

Perhaps your season hasn’t gone as well as you had hoped seven weeks ago, but you’ve seen your boys put up great effort. They deserve the recognition for their effort, even if the teams haven’t been able to win as many games as you hoped.

There’s so much more to football than winning. There’s so many different ways to win besides a lopsided scoreboard. Like I’ve said in the past, there’s thousands of tiny battles happening on the football field. There are hundreds of victories every Friday night on both sides of the line of scrimmage.